I've just been looking at this thread, well actually gave up half way down page 3 and came to the end to post this.

I stopped my yahoo updates and I don't come here very often because of the bitching, moaning and demands for proof.

You keep bees, you gather honey, you eat it. Do your own thing, read the forums modify your attitudes if you want. There is more than one way to skin a cat, as my granny used to say.

Get out and look at your bees, mine are storming and I look forward to eating last years honey once I'm sure they don't need it any more. Start some more colonies so that you have less time to theorise and gain more practical experience. oh and ENJOY.

LOL! I too gave up after reading only 3 pages of this thread. You can't please everyone all of the time. An example:

We have a small, non-certified organic free range poultry (egg) farm. The chicken coops are cleaned every other day, the chickens are treated like partners and not commodities, they're fed excellent quality feed and scratch grains in the feeders, and they are free to roam around the farm scratching for insects and eating grasses, etc, until their hearts content. The eggs are collected, cleaned if dirty, put into cartons, dated and refrigerated. Naturally, when you crack open one of our eggs the yolks are firm and a deep orange color owing to their more natural diet....a marked contrast to the anemic looking store-bought eggs.

So, we've basically got one of the most natural, healthy, socially conscious, and pesticide-free eggs you could possibly find anywhere. And yet there are people who don't like them because they don't come from a 'store' and are 'different' (these are usually city folks).

The moral of the story is....
There will always be people for whom something out of the norm will be treated as suspect, whether there are any justifiable reasons for their suspicions or not. And even when those suspicions are refuted, it will not change some people's minds. Ever. My brother-in-law won't eat our eggs, claiming that they are 'too rich'. And yet he'll sit down and eat an entire bag of potato chips washed down with a soda or two, and followed by a Twinkie for 'desert'.
The fact is, he, like many people, are slightly phobic about things that don't have a safety seal around them and a 'USDA guarantee of quality' stamped all over them, regardless of whether the guarantee is vapid or not....as recent cases of salmonella in supposedly 'inspected' foods have confirmed.

Absolutely - I have a great supply of fantastic organic eggs - so much better than the cr*p from the supermarket.

CAbeek - I'm taking a wild guess that you are in California, but would you mind putting your location in your profile, please? It helps us when answering questions so we don't have to play 'guess your climate'... thanks.

i once read that 100% of the eggs in the US are contaminated with salmonella. don't know if it is true and i don't care. i cook them.

i would certainly agree with the same statement about all poultry. again, i cook em til they are done. i guess that birds and salmonella get along.

i work at a facility that uses wheat flour. i know for a fact that our incoming flour has flour beetle eggs in it. so does that bag in your kitchen. we sift the flour before using it. the screens catch anything big like beetles and larvae. we still see beetles inside the plant at times.

co-workers offer me deer meat from time to time. i always decline mainly because i don't know how it was processed. USDA is not a guarantee either, but at least the facilities get a looking at. however, i do eat fish that i have caught and cleaned myself. i trust the processor-me.

if you are really concerned about what is in your food, don't ever eat a hot dog. you really don't want to know.

since i have never, that i know of, eaten any unprocessed honey, i intend to try a spoonful and give it a day. i might be allergic to something that factory processing eliminates. we have Benadryl and EPI pens._________________The bees want a hollow tree or log with a small entrance. It is our job to provide that for them.

Now is pdcambs still here ? If someone knows him point him here again.

I harvested some comb that had couple of generations of bees born earlier. It is tasting great and am eating it myself. The clean one goes to friends and relatives. What can I say hehe...I am selfish sometimes

Regarding bee poo in the comb and honey..... Tests were done here with colored syrup given to the bees in summer and autumn. Bees stored the syrup for their overwintering use in brood nest. All supers and honey frames were off.
Next year right before what is major honey flow in our parts - Black Locust, supers were put onto the hives as usual every year. And couple of weeks later honey was harvested from those supers. Guess what. Honey was freaking colored. It contained colored syrup mixed with Black Locust honey.

Wow. Does anyone else feel like they just got kicked in the stomach after reading this. If you have a phobia about poo, don't eat your honey, let us eat it. Bernhard, IMO, you've got it right, thanks for not getting personal._________________Try not. Do...or do not. There is no try.

Yea it is pretty much non-issue if you take honey from comb that had couple of generations of bees born.

If you think about it....it is PROVEN that bees move honey from cell to cell, comb to comb, frame to frame. Even when there is flow they also store nectar in other "hive bodies" and not just supers and they later move it up. That way they SCREW those smart beekeepers who think they have honey from virgin comb They do it on purpose to the beeks who don't believe in bees way of doing hehe.

If you read a little about bee biology and not just month-to-month instructions from your local bee magazine you find out that this thread is NO ISSUE. It is kind of sad really. I smell fish....._________________My Beekeeping Gallery | BioBees.com Top Bar Hive eBook

The dangers of data - I've noticed of late that on this, and other forums, there are demands for "data" as if it is the pinnacle of all truth and understanding - in it's place, properly sourced data, correctly and appositely interpreted is invaluable, but I get the feeling there is a great deal of "can't see the wood for the trees" going on. I wrote the following for another forum (the thread subject was wall insulation), but the principal is exactly the same........

"Let's for argument's sake take footwear as an example - I don't understand footwear data, even less do I understand sock data, but I want a comfy sock/shoe combination for argument's sake - hiking - where do I go for data? - what would I do with a basket of assorted footwear data? - What would it need to measure? - insulation?, porosity? bounce? bendiness?, heel height ratios? comparative porosity of sock materials expressed as litres per hour plotted against sweat density?.....................I would contend that we wouldn't have a bally clue where to start looking at, interpreting or understanding "data", you'd go to a hiking forum, and read the posts on footwear, then possibly the recommended manufacturers websites, and at the end of the day, ask the advice of your mate who's been hiking for years........"_________________http://farmco.co.uk
Sussex Natural Beekeepers' Forum

Well said. At the end of the day we are human beings, not data processing machines. Although, like you, I notice that a lot of folk think that we should act like machines - computers if you will - and disregard all the non-machine attributes that make us what we are. Mates are a very good source of help. They have the same attributes, desires and hopes that we do.

Actually, the degree of social input and contextualisation increases as one moves from data through information to knowledge. Knowledge is what we thirst for. Data is a pale first step._________________Gareth

My motive for starting this thread was and still is because I want to be convinced by those with experience of "crush and strain" harvesting that it's going to be safe for me to harvest honey from Warre hives, and safe for my customers to eat it. Is the only way of doing this by placing a fresh box on top, and allowing the colony to fill freshly drawn comb exclusively for harvest? Has anyone tried this successfully?
John

Yes - Robbie Kerr, from Ayrshire, who used the Stewarton Bee Hive from about 1818 onwards, another hive using the same principles as the Warre, only earlier. The idea was to nadir when the bees were building up and then to super during the main nectar flow. Robbie Kerr was renouned for his fine comb honey and won prizes for it at National competitions. The queen, being occupied in the lower boxes has no reason to migrate to the upper boxes.

Apart from foundation, the other thing the moveable frame hive got wrong was to force the bees to brood in a non-extensible brood box. So today, swarming is the number two issue for all modern beeks (after ccd and bee health).

In Skep keeping days the comb was eaten brood et al & the eater probably benefited from the extra protein, vitamins & minerals it contained even if the bees didn't? & the extra little bits that nowadays would be processed out added to the immune system which in modern man & woman is becoming seriously compromised.

Absolutely my friend... I read in one of the old books that the skep was sqeezed in a vise to harvest honey and juices from brood, dead bees and probably bits of cow dung from the covering of the skep. In the mid 17th Century beekeepers became interested in the Preservation of the Bees and honey free from brood could be harvested. Some of the predecessors of the Warre were born then. The skill of harvesting honey without killing the bees goes back to Greek and Roman times but the Medieval beekeepers lost that knowledge.

'Aye ... He didn't have a wooden leg then" sez the farmer, "But 6 month's ago the kitchen caught fire and my missus was overcome by smoke. Yon pig breaks in through the kitchen door and drags her to safety, rekon he saved her life'.

'Why that's incredible' sez yer man, 'Pig with a wooden...'

'He didn't have a wooden leg then ' sez the farmer ' but last month armed robbers came to steal the combine harvester and that pig disarmed all four of them and cornered them in the cow shed till the police came.'

Regarding bee poo in the comb and honey..... Tests were done here with colored syrup given to the bees in summer and autumn. Bees stored the syrup for their overwintering use in brood nest. All supers and honey frames were off.
Next year right before what is major honey flow in our parts - Black Locust, supers were put onto the hives as usual every year. And couple of weeks later honey was harvested from those supers. Guess what. Honey was freaking colored. It contained colored syrup mixed with Black Locust honey.

Conclusion : you get bee poo either way For me it tastes delicious

I have been reading this thread with interest and surprised no one responded to this as I am about to. I fail to see how this proves there is bee poo in honey they could have used the colored syrup to make honey? or am I out to lunch and bees only use syrup for food?

I have also read bees only defecate outside the hive and clean cells spotless. Not that I am worried about it...

Hi john
I'am bill and new to bee keeping but i have a friend that has worked with bees for years and he is helping me find my way .
It looks to me as if you just do not want people to use TBH .
If you do not like what other people are doing you just stay away and do your thing the way you want to do it .
Some of us are more then happy to give TBH ago .
Contaminated honey lets not go there YOU EAT CONTAMINATED FOOD EVERY DAY OF EVERY WEEK BUT YOU DO NOT KNOW IT .
I grow all my fruit and veg and you want to see the things i fine in them .
rat poo bird poo and thats not the bad things .
You do not see this on the veg from the shops why they spray them MORE cr@p* YOU EAT BUT THEY SAY IT IS FINE SO YOU ARE OK WITH IT ?
THE cr@p* THEY PUT ON YOUR FOOD WILL KILL YOU THE SAME WAY IT IS KILLING OUR BEES .
I THINK SOME PEOPLE WANT THINGS TO CLEAN AND THEY END UP TAKING ALL THE GOODNESS OUT OF THE FOOD .
My fruit and veg all i have to do is wash it in just water when i get home and it is ready for me to eat .
My old dad told me ( you will eat 2 pound of S--T before you die boy ) and he was right .
I would sooner eat honey from comb that is just one or two years old then comb that is used over and over for years and years .
Some keepers i talk to say some of the comb they use is 5 / 6 or even 9 years old it looks black just think of all the poo in that and if it is in there it will be in the honey .
To end up if you do not like the way TBH work then do not use them it is easy it is down to you walk away and use your other hives with 5 or 9 year old comb and 5 or 9 years of beepoo in them .
Thanks for your time
Bill

I know this is an old thread but I don't care and I received an email from the "FAVV" (Federal Agency for Food Security in Belgium). They were answering the question I had if there is any problem in using (eating, selling) honey that's stored in comb that had brood in it before.
And they don't see any problem there!
As long as no brood is 'harvested' together with the honey there is nothing wrong...
After all, the bees disinfect every cell, every time a bee 'is born', with pure propolis.

There are allowable levels of contaminate in all kinds of foods, I wonder how many people know the levels of rat feces allowed in products like white bread, I think you'd be amazed, and most customers appalled, great for sales!

Bee poop happens when bees are born... natural byproduct, possibly good for me. Hehe, any studies done on that one yet? Seems like a great thesis for a grad student!
Maggots happen when butchers are lazy... a natural byproduct of rotting meat - yea, that'll make you sick!

Conserving wild bees

Research suggests that bumble bee boxes have a very low success rate in actually attracting bees into them. We find that if you create an environment where first of all you can attract mice inside, such as a pile of stones, a drystone wall, paving slabs with intentionally made cavities underneath, this will increase the success rate.

Most bumble bee species need a dry space about the size a football, with a narrow entrance tunnel approximately 2cm in diameter and 20 cm long. Most species nest underground along the base of a linear feature such as a hedge or wall. Sites need to be sheltered and out of direct sunlight.